House of Eratosthenes

I was scanning over fellow Right Wing News contributor Dr. Melissa Clouthier‘s thoughts about the way Sarah Palin was treated in the election last year. I thought it would be good to jot down some theories I’ve had rattling around in my head, which I can’t prove but can’t disprove either. Some of them cannot remain in this uncertain state with the passage of time, so this should be a handy list to keep on hand in the years ahead.

Had womens’ suffrage never been enacted, Sarah Palin would be the President right now.

Yeah, that one can’t ever be proven or disproven. And, obviously, what I mean to say is “if somehow the chicks could run but couldn’t vote.” And then there’s the matter of that old guy she was running with, whose name escapes me.

People who dislike Sarah Palin, by and large, hate her. Most of them are women. The men who do this, write like women and they probably throw baseballs that way too.

Those men would not be able to take on the average Palin-voting man in a fist fight. I doubt like hell they could prevail in an election…among just men. Nope, so far, every manly-men I’ve met, likes and respects Sarah Palin — or, at the very least, while voting against her nevertheless acknowledged she was probably qualified for the office she sought.

An indispensible part of this frothy anti-Palin rage that possessed so much weight in determining the election outcome last year, was female jealousy. I never did see the gentlemen contribute much toward the “come hate Palin with us!” movement. Crab-in-a-bucket syndrome. You’re prettier than me, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to live in the White House when I won’t be…said the other women.

If womens’ suffrage revoked the right to vote from men, we’d still make it to 2009 without a single female President.

Getting a female in the House of Representatives or the Senate is relatively easy, because most women would be willing to do it. You stick out when you want to, the rest of the time you fade into the crowd of fellow senators. It takes an unusual woman to fill an executive position — one in which, sometimes, you might wish the ground would swallow you up and cloak you in comforting anonymity, but you simply don’t have that option. Parents and teachers who are responsible for the upbringing of both boys and girls, will readily admit, they inculcate the boys to this uncomfortable position with much more regularity and vigor than the girls. If they don’t admit that, they’re damned liars.

Boys and girls are simply not brought up the same way. To presume men and women are exactly the same, is just stupid. To continue to think so, against the evidence that comes along to assault your theory, is borderline insane. Women tend to recoil from the prospect of sticking out from the crowd. Many women don’t recoil from this, but if they are indeed ready to take on the challenges of true individuality, they’re ready in a way different from the equivalent gentleman because they’ll insist on doing it on their terms. They tend to insist on more control over it than men do.

Ridicule? That’s quite out of the question. This is why, when you see a television commercial about a pain reliever or a cleaning product, even a cleaning product that has to do with cars, when one half of the married couple is using “Brand X” and in need of correction, it’s the man. Men can take ridicule.

People say a lot about what it’s like to be President of the United States; most of the folks who comment about this, like me, have never been President. So allow me to join their ranks with a contribution no one’s quite made yet, at least, not very often: When you’re the United States President, someone, somewhere, is going to make a fool out of you. Often. And you’ll know it. If you’re not cool with that, it’s not the job you should be seeking.

Women are smart. And they don’t need to be told…most of them should not be seeking this job. So they don’t. We do not have any sinister, wrinkly, old, “Wear Neckties At Midnight” white-guy star chambers with secret handshakes conspiring to keep women out of the White House.

We don’t need ’em for that. It’s the women. Most of them just don’t want to go there.

If Nancy Pelosi didn’t have two years to show us how awful a “First Woman X” could be, Hillary would’ve been nominated.

The “oppressed black male” victim card kicked the “oppressed woman” victim card’s ass twice last year.

And good.

We’re just not all that thrilled with seeing the “First Woman X” anymore. In fact, if the first woman to walk on the moon took her stroll tomorrow at high noon, you wouldn’t know anything about it, and you wouldn’t know anything about it because you wouldn’t want to know anything about it.

“First Women” don’t necessarily have to be good women. They have at least the potential to be downright lousy. No one says that, but just about everyone knows it, and acts on it — and they know it because Speaker Nan has been a terrible House Speaker.

If a major political party nominated a candidate-of-color more rational and soothing than Jesse Jackson, we could’ve had a black President years ago.

Because no bigotry really got defeated in November of 2008. What happened was, in November 2008, we found out that if it is indeed around, it is incapable of dictating the outcome of an election like we had been led to believe.

How long has that been going on? We don’t know, because the only person-of-color to be seriously nominated by a major political party, was a nut. And I’m being generous with my use of the phrase “seriously nominated.”

President Obama needs to find a new gimmick in 2012, or else make some retirement plans.

This one, I think I can bet some money on.

There won’t be any “thing” for people to “be a part of.”

And we will have had four years to see what Obama policies really look like (last year, it was considered rude to even inquire as to what they might be). Seeing the wreckage of forty-eight months of policies enacted, was more than enough to sour us on Jimmy Carter.

If Sarah Palin looked more like Madeleine Albright, she would’ve received much better treatment.

I’ll bet money on that too.

Sarah Palin received a great deal of abuse — because she’s pretty. Underqualified? Cut me a megaton break. Check out some of the ugly liberal democrat women serving under the capitol dome — or better yet, some of the ugly liberal democrat women who weren’t elected to anything at all, and simply wrote some screeching feminist bromide book. Imagine them held to some litmus test, sensible or otherwise, vis a vis “qualifications.”

Average-looking women don’t like pretty women. Not unless the pretty woman keeps her mouth shut, her opinions to herself, and floats around as a bit of human fluff, completely harmless, capable of being a universal peer to…whoever. Good looks, strong opinion, support from fellow females: She can pick just two of those.

Nine out of ten Obama voters who think Sarah Palin is an underqualified embarrassment, can’t list from memory three things Palin really said.

They get so cranky when you point out they get their news from Saturday Night Live, and The Daily Show. No they don’t! No they don’t! They watch Keith Olbermann too!

Nice try, but if you talk to them for a few minutes you realize they really do get their news from The Daily Show.

And so far, every embarrassing “gaffe” they attribute to Palin, actually came out of the mouth of Tina Fey. Occasionally I’ll meet one who understands Palin said something slightly different, and can recite her actual statement, insisting that’s just as embarrassing as the way Fey re-worded it. But that’s the power of comedy for you. What Palin said wasn’t really just as embarrassing, or even, embarrassing at all. If it was, there’d be no need to re-word it. And no currency awarded to Tina Fey, for having done so.

What liberals love about America, is what they love about America after America has been “changed.”

We’ll be such a wonderful country, as soon as we finish dishing out some endless litany of apologies.

You single, available studs out there, I’d like you to start wooing the object of your affection this way. Shower her with platitudes about how wonderful she will be when you’re done changing her.

Bet you won’t win that election. You might even get a restraining order filed against you.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Morgan… you should consider moving to Anchorage or Juneau, or somewhere similar. Just to be closer to her, ya know?

I’m ambivalent about Palin, for the most part. Except for when she opens her mouth… her VOICE drives me up the frickin’ wall. It ain’t what she says, mind you. I can read transcripts with NO problems. It’s her register… which is only slightly better than fingernails dragged slowly down a chalkboard. Repeatedly. I’d vote against her simply to avoid having to listen to that voice for four years. I’m serious as a frickin’ heart attack when I say this.
- Buck | 01/31/2009 @ 12:46
Morgan,

Great column from Dr. Clothier; thanks for the link. I think you’ve nailed it with “Good looks, strong opinion, support from fellow females: She can pick just two of those.”

This is the kernel of triage; as I phrased it to Project Management students, the essence of reality is “Better, Cheaper, Quicker. Pick 2.” What we’ve seen in the recent national embarrassment is the ultimate expression of The Politics of Envy. Ugly.

I have to disagree with Buck on this one. Like him I’ve lived all over, and encountered countless voices and accents which offend my singer’s ear much more than Governor Palin’s, which seems to me primarily Midwestern. Mostly she just sounds normal, in notable contrast to most national politicians.

Good post.
- rob | 01/31/2009 @ 13:03
Well, I have partial agreement there, at least to the extent I know what Buck is talking about. She comes off as a personification of the Church Lady, like she’s spent lots of time addressing an audience that may not be dumb, necessarily, but not terribly sophisticated either. Gosh, y’know, it’s been so great palin’ around with these folks who are so full of love for their country, and it’s just been swell…

Yes, it would be irritating listening to that all day for months at a time. But I don’t think you’d have to do it that long. As the election season came to an end, Palin showed some subtle signs of learning how to address a broader audience. That’s a sign of intellect, in my book, and it impresses me especially when you compare it to…former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton when he was on the campaign trail. Remember that? “I feel your pain”? “I didn’t inhale”? Right up until we put Newt in to put the brakes on that “Slick Willie” nonsense, Pres. Clinton was still talking that way.

And then there’s Conyers. And Frank. This is where Buck and I part ways: Annoying is relative. And on the annoying list, she’d be very, very far down, if she made it into the beltway, which I think she will.
- mkfreeberg | 01/31/2009 @ 19:17
Conyers, Frank – what about 0bama? Am I the only guy around who has a visceral reaction to being talked down to? I gotta say, I’m beginning (Oh no!) to understand the KosKids’ reaction to Bush, ’cause 0’s offhand condescension really gets my hackles up fast. Lefties love to lecture.

I hear you about people having bad reactions to “You betcha”, etc. Like I said, it seems pretty regular to me, and I can talk like a collitch gradjuate if I want to. I remember, though, how refreshing most folks found Harry Truman after a lifetime of the Voice of Youah Betters from FDR, and I suspect an awful lot of people thought SP sounded like a breath of no-BS air.

Just my opinion
- rob | 01/31/2009 @ 20:14
rob sez: what about 0bama? Am I the only guy around who has a visceral reaction to being talked down to?

You are NOT alone! The man is glib and articulate to a fault, and you’ve nailed the fault, rob… IMHO.

The other thing about The One that bugs the BeJeezus out of me is all this CYA stuff he keeps throwing out, e.g., “It’s gonna be a long hard slog/climb/road (insert metaphor du jour here)” vis-a-vis the economy. The One needs to learn that one of THE most important aspects of his job as CinC and Leader of The Free World is being Cheerleader in Chief. The market tanks every goddamned time he opens his mouth about this “long hard road” we’re on. EVERY time. There’s precious little reason for confidence in the economy at this point, to be sure. But it doesn’t do any of us ANY damned good to be reminded of it 7×24. “Confidence” (or lack of same) is one of the most important parts of our economy, and The One ain’t doing a damned thing to help in that space.

I agree with you, btw, about Palin’s “mid-western” accent. But it ain’t the accent I’m on about… it’s her vocal register… her semi-squeaky voice… that simply drives me NUTS. I’d hire a voice coach were I she/her.
- Buck | 02/01/2009 @ 16:51
“Confidence” (or lack of same) is one of the most important parts of our economy, and The One ain’t doing a damned thing to help in that space.

Neo-Neocon agrees with you, and so do I.
- mkfreeberg | 02/01/2009 @ 20:17
She’s proven she can adjust it, for example on that Charlie Rose interview back in October 2007. or even in that rather vicious sketch of her, willing to censor Saturday Night Live, But when she gets enthusiastic, the register tends to go up. I’ve rightly become
skeptical on the One’s plans, by I was expecting at the very least something to raise depressed spirits, I got nothing of the kind, and the Lowery invocation was even more depressingly out of tune with the import of the moment.
- narciso | 02/02/2009 @ 10:50

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Eight Things I Cannot Prove (Yet)Saturday, January 31st, 2009

Eight Things I Cannot Prove (Yet)
Saturday, January 31st, 2009